


Another Country

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-03
Updated: 2012-04-03
Packaged: 2017-11-03 00:06:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/374864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha has reconciled herself to the past in ways he can't yet, in ways he might never be able to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Country

i. 

Natasha is seventeen the first time they meet. She hasn't been a girl for a long time, but they do not yet treat her as a woman. She is still able, if not always willing, to be swayed by a pretty face and pretty words, though he hadn't many of the latter then, his instructions brusque and to the point as he trained her to fight. But, oh, she'd wanted to impress him then, wanted him to praise her instead of simply barking, Again, after every flip or twist or roll.

She doesn't know how much he remembers, now, of those days. The killing weighs heavy on him, etched into the lines on his face--too young for his age and too old at the same time, a familiar look she sees in the mirror every day, though she's reconciled herself to the past in ways he can't yet, in ways he might never be able to. But the pleasure, the companionship they shared--she doesn't know if he doesn't remember or chooses not to, if everything from his time with the Red Room is tainted, even her.

She watches him force the mask, the charming face no one else sees through, because he was taught not to show any fear, any doubt, any pain. Because he was one of the ones who taught her the same thing.

Steve watches him, puzzled at how the man he rescued, the man he so joyfully embraced as his long-lost friend and brother, is in those moments so different from the one he knew.

The others are reluctant to have him on the team and he knows it, lets Steve advocate for him while he fades into the background.

"You should fight your own battles," she tells him. 

He laughs, both bitter and resigned, and shakes his head. "I would if I thought I had a place on your team," he says, "but I work better alone."

"Steve won't give up."

"No. He won't." There's something warm in his voice that only seems to appear when he talks to or about Steve. She wishes his memories of her were as fond, and then wishes she didn't wish anything about him at all, that feelings long since dead would stay buried.

"But you will."

He meets her gaze for the first time. "They're not wrong. I wouldn't want me on the team either." He walks away before she can answer.

*

ii.

"I work alone," he tells her when she asks if she will be his partner once her training is complete. "And you'll be too busy seducing rich Americans to bother with me then." But he laughs into her mouth when he kisses her and she swallows it down, holds it inside of her like light when things are dark and she remembers to be afraid.

She has never played the coquette unless it's absolutely necessary--she generally has more effective methods of getting what she wants, and she has yet to learn patience--but something in him brings it out in her, and draws a playful, teasing side out of him she's sure no one else gets to see.

The first time he kisses her, he's careful, gentle. He doesn't touch her with his metal hand, as if he's ashamed of it, and she wonders what it would feel like against her skin, brings herself off thinking of him on those rare occasions she has the opportunity. Later, after she's completed her first successful mission, he's there at the rendezvous instead of her handler. He leads her up to his hotel room and she learns that the metal warms to her body temperature when he holds it against the small of her back, his other hand teasing at her clit as he fucks her. He knows what he's doing, better than she does at that point, teaches her things about her body in bed the same way he taught her in the gym, only here he gives her the encouragement and praise she craved from him there, his voice a low litany of _yes_ and _please_ and _good_. These are often the only words between them, since it's too dangerous to use her name, and he doesn't have one.

After that, he sneaks in to see her as often as he can; they steal time that should be spent on strategic planning or mission briefings pressed together, bodies moving in time like the well-oiled machine they've been trained to be.

He shocks both of them once by falling into English as he comes, hips stuttering against hers as his voice crescendos, louder than he usually allows himself to be. They laugh nervously, once the surprise has worn off, but never speak of it. They're young, and she hasn't yet learned how to use her fear as fuel.

She doesn't see him again for months.

*

iii.

The next time Natasha sees him, it takes a while for recognition to light in his eyes, and his gaze is assessing, weighing. It sparks something in her that she turns to anger. 

They spar, and she has new tricks to show off, is able to hold her own against him in ways that surprise and, she learns as she pins him to the mat, please him. She rolls her hips and he thrusts up against her with a low grunt. She bites back a smile, keeps her face expressionless as she jumps to her feet and offers him a hand up. He pulls her in close against him and whispers low in her ear--yes, good, please\--proof that whatever they've taken from him, they haven't taken _her_.

He sneaks in her window that night, his hands and mouth eager, almost frantic against her skin, and she arches up into every thrust and roll, her whole body alive in a way it isn't with the others, in a way that only the thrill of fighting, or winning, has ever given her.

She feels a sharp thrill of triumph when he slides down the bed to put his mouth to her cunt. She clamps her thighs around his head, and they both know she could easily snap his neck; it makes her orgasm stronger and sweeter to know that he trusts her, or perhaps he just likes the danger. In those days, she could never tell.

The next time she sees him, he doesn't know her at all. 

She doesn't cry and she doesn't see him again for years. She lets time have its way with the memory, because she has more important things to do than mourn.

*

iv.

Natasha has never liked playing the coquette, but something in him brings it out in her, the ghost of that seventeen-year-old girl who wanted to impress him, wanted him to like her. The past is always with them, she thinks, carried around in dreams, in memories, in scars--souvenirs of that country they've tried so hard to leave behind.

Steve fights for him, and even Fury has a hard time resisting Captain America when he wants something. The others slowly come around, once Professor Xavier provides reassurances that there are no hidden triggers or code words implanted in his head, nothing that will make him turn on the team, or on himself, or into the mindless killer he fears himself to be.

She spars with him, wins two out of three before she convinces him to stop holding back, and when she pins him this time, he bucks up against her, mouth half-curved in a smirk and a wicked glint in his eye she thought she'd never see again.

"Good," he says, his smirk widening into a smile. The meaning's the same, though the language is different, and the time she needed his praise as validation is long past (though the satisfaction of winning is still sweet). She nods and starts to rise, but he puts a hand on her knee. "Natasha." It's more an acknowledgement than a plea, and she answers the best way she knows how.

She smiles then, leans in and rests her arms against his chest. "Hello, James," she says, and presses her mouth to his.

end

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what version of Natasha's backstory they're going to use in the movie, so I'm using Brubaker's from vol. 5 of Captain America.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Another Country](https://archiveofourown.org/works/453205) by [greedy_dancer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greedy_dancer/pseuds/greedy_dancer)




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